Duke Ellington celebrated at new UK jazz festival

Duke Ellington's Sacred Music concerts will be peformed at inaugural Bristol
Jazz & Bluesfest to mark 40th anniversary of premiere at Westminster Abbey.

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Duke EllingtonPhoto: AP

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Duke Ellington in Paris in 1960Photo: Rex Features

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Duke Ellington holding some flowers after being presented with them as he arrived in London in 1969Photo: PA

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A statue of Duke Ellington was unveiled in Soho in 1997 by sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby (left), Kenny Ball and George Melly. The statue did not stay in London and reportedly ended up in the garden of businessman Peter Boizot.Photo: Stephen Hird

"Every man prays in his own language, and there is no language that God does not understand," said the late, great jazz man Duke Ellington.

The three beautiful Sacred Music concerts (1965, 1968 and 1973) were the culmination of the final elegiac phase of his life's work in music, and they are being reprised in a special concert as part of the inaugural Bristol International Jazz & Blues Festival.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the third and final Ellington concert — which had its premiere in October 1973 at London's Westminster Abbey — conductor David Ogden has brought together 180 singers to perform 10 movements drawn from the three works.

Ellington, who died in May 1974 aged 75, spent the last years of his life composing the Sacred Music concerts (below, a drawing of him by Wally 'Trog' Fawkes). The Washington-born pianist, who composed and arranged hits such as Mood Indigo, It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) and In a Sentimental Mood, said that the inspiration for the Sacred Music began during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

In his programme notes for the first concert, he wrote: "How can anyone expect to be understood unless he presents his thoughts with complete honesty?"

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Many of the songs from the Sacred Concerts originate from stories in the Old Testament. Ellington’s third Sacred Concert was written for Westminster Abbey in the last year of his life. The mood moves away from preaching and towards meditation. It opens with Ellington’s piano solo interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. His compositions were built around the voice of Alice Babs, the soulful baritone saxophone of Harry Carney, and Ellington himself on the piano.

The concert in Bristol's Colston Hall will feature the Exultate Choir and the Big Buzzard Boogie Band. The soloist is Yolanda Quartey and tap dancer Junior Laniyan will also perform.